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I just thought I should point out that most of the people who are quoting you $400 for a TiVo unit are quoting you the retail price for a standalone TiVo. Now what savvy Slashdot shopper actually pays retail? :P

The HDVR2 DirecTiVo is $199 if you're a current DirecTV subscriber. Just call DirecTV at 1-800-DIRECTV and request it. That's $199 installed, I might add.

If you're not a current DirecTV subscriber, you can get an HDVR2, a dual LNB dish, and have the whole damn thing installed for $219. Check American Satellite for more.

If you want to stick with digital cable (bleh, why?!) and wish for a standalone TiVo, all you have to do is go to TiVo.com and click on the Buy TiVo link. There you'll see 80GB TiVos for $249. (Note that the DirecTV TiVos can record more programs on an 80GB drive than the standalone TiVos set at Best quality, so don't let that affect your buying decision.)

Finally, if you're interested in video extraction, you can hack the TiVo. If you're not interested in hacking your TiVo, just do what I did: I set up an ATI All-In-Wonder card and hooked it up to the second input of my TiVo. I then used the "Save to VCR" function to archive shows. With a CD burner, I can burn to VCD... if you have a DVD burner, you can burn direct to DVD. "Save to VCR" comes with your TiVo, works well, and doesn't require hacking your TiVo. It makes archiving video a cinch.

When it's all said and done, you could buy two standalone TiVos for less than what you're paying, or opt for the DirecTV option and pay LESS for a TiVo, installation, and 6-8 months of DirecTV service... and you don't have to do any more work other than clicking a couple buttons on American Satellite's website. When you look at it this way, building your own doesn't make much sense!

You should be aware that DirecTV is now rebranding it's TiVo units/service...they've changed a few of the menus but all the functionality and usability is still there...plus you can avoid the monthly TiVo service fee, if you get the more expensive packages.

Click here to go straight to the appropriate page for Combo units. Note: They do have combo Series 2 TiVo units now, but I don't have any experience with them and their prices are higher.

Click here to go straight to the appropriate page for Combo units. Note: They do have combo Series 2 TiVo units now, but I don't have any experience with them and their prices are higher.

He's right -- DirecTIVO is the bomb. You can get it here which is where I got mine. It's a pretty good deal and so worth it.

I remember having to wire something up when the power went out (no, not network cabling, more mundane stuff). Well, when the soldering iron got too cold to work anymore (no, I didn't have a battery powered one -- they weren't decent in those days), you start stripping the cables as usual, twist them, wrap them in solder, and use a match to secure the connection. A temporary hack, to be sure, but it worked for as long as it had to.

I will say, that if you plan to do a lot of this, (and "a lot" can be "as little" as retrofitting structured wiring in a house"), get the proper tools: a Greenlee punch down tool for jacks and headend (usually comes with either a 66 or 110 blade -- you want the 110 but it's worth paying the US$15 or so for the other) at about US$45, a hand crimper for RJ45/RJ11/RJ14 (usually comes with a bunch of plugs) at about US$20, a coax wire stripper with RG6 and R59 settings at under US$10, and a decent RG6/RG59 coax crimper: around US$20. Surprisingly. Home Depot has all this stuff, including plugs, structured wallplates and jacks, Cat5e cable, etc. (Having the coax stuff is, less surprising). BTW, crimping cables, particularly RG6 coax connectors is hard on the hands -- do get a good tool.

I retrofitted structured wiring to a house I bought a year ago. (You don't want to do this: putzing around in the attic, drilling through non-load bearing top-plates is double plus not fun -- I hired a guy who had network experience and did residential "cable" and "phone" cabling, but only had him help tie-wrap and pull cable -- it was stilla lot of work and definately a two-person job.)

I pulled two Cat5e ant two RG6 cables to six drops, plus an attic "subdistribution area" (existing cable and telco drops terminated up there) from a headend which received the DSL line, POTS, dual LNBs pointed at two satellites, and a terrestrial SD/HD/analog TV antenna in the attic. There are breakout panels in the headend. So, that's 14 Cat5e jack terminations (headend side is punched down to 110 blocks), and 28 coax terminations, just for primary cabling. Then there's end-cables to crimp, terminating satellite lead-in (8 more coax connectors: one each end of four cables), satellite cross-connect cables (8 more!), and break-out panel to multiswitch cables (yet another 8). 7 cables (14 more coax connectors!) go from the multiswitch to the coax breakout panels. 7 Cat5E jumpers (14 RJ45 crimps) run from the firewall/router to the Cat5e breakout panel, and 7 punched down jacks on that panel to the 110 blocks. There are some odds and ends (line power inserters for the attic-located terrestrial antenna amp) as well. Oh, and if you do this, you will be making jack extention cables (two coax, two Cat5e, around 100 feet long), with four coax and four Cat5e crimps, for testing back to the headend when you suspect the cabling to a jack.

The bottom line is that if you wire, retrofit structured wiring in a home, you will crimp and punch down so much, by the time you're done, you will be an expert. One upside is that you will almost never buy pre-made cables again: you'll just make your own, to length, as required. Oh, and if you run two cables, do get two spools, or you will go crazy running a cable, going back, running another, and so on. Yes, this means you will have two spools of leftover. Save it to make patch cables.

In my case, I bought 2000 feet of Cat5e and 2000 feet of RG6 (the guys at Home Depot thought I was nuts, and BTW, RG6 on the spool gets heavy fast), and ended up using around 1500 feet of each in a 3200 square foot house. I got headend enclosures, patch panels, a multiswitch, diplexers, and misc. stuff from Home Tech and satellite gear from American Satellite.

The only hassle I had was over a dish cover, and even for that they did a good job of getting the problem straightened out. Both I and they were frustrated by the time I got the cover I originally ordered, but with all the shipping charges they lost money rather than letting a customer go away unhappy.

No, I don't work for them, own stock, have relatives who work there, etc. I was just really impressed with how far they went to ensure I was happy with the equipment I ordered.

At Best Buy, on sale, the day after Xmas. I got the Hughes unit, but other units are generally about the same price or even sometimes cheaper. The Hughes unit is model # GXCEBOT, Phillips has the DSR6000, and there are others. Your local Best Buy should carry it even if they haven't the slightest what it is, or you can get it from various online outfits. Check out American Satellite for good info. Prices seem OK too.

Try American Satellite -- I just ordered three Phillips DirecTV receivers with TiVo from them -- $99 each including shipping!

The best part about the "DirecTivos" is that you only have to purchase a subscription for one of them. For the others you simply pay the $5 DirecTV fee for a second receiver.

They have dual-tuner capability, so each Tivo can record two channels simultaneously.

So, ask me, is $300 + $250 lifetime subscription too much to pay to be able to record 6 channels at once?!? I don't think so.

For the curious... That's one TiVo for me, one for the wife, and another for sports and movies. (OK, guess that's really two for me :) )

Fortunately http://www.americansatellite.com/ has a return/trade-in policy that runs for a month or so. I was able to trade it in for a DirecTiVO unit. I went with the Sony SAT-T60. It cost me an extra $100 due to unit price differences (other TiVO units were the same price as the UTV, Sony is just pricier), but ASE covered the shipping charges for the replacement and the return. (Yes, this is a shameless plug because I've been very happy with their service and support.)

Aside from the M$ based unit losing everything when it crashed, both units had about the same picture quality.

I typically got about 16-20 hours recording time with both TiVO and UTV, despite the claims of "up to 30 hours."

The TiVO units let you start recordings 5 minutes early; the UTV only lets you extend recording time. A lot of channels up there don't start at exactly the time they say in the listings, so you can lose the opening moments with the UTV.

TiVO lets you record by time/channel as well as through the guide. If you know the guide is wrong (often the case for local channels), you can "force" the TiVO to record the channel/time you want. The UTV doesn't support that feature.

There were other little nicities I noticed with the TiVO, but I don't remember them offhand (it's been a few months.)

Personally I'd never recommend a UTV unit to anyone. Aside from the crash, there are just too many little functionality tweaks to the TiVO that leave the UTV a so-so imitation instead of a true competitor.